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Now onto the Tacoma.
I had big ambitious plans to road trip across Canada and pick up a new project out west, but first I needed to replace the entire front end which wobbled, groaned, creaked and vibrated. Not bad for 235,000kms essentially from the factory.Over the course of 2 weeks I stripped the front end, and replaced: UCA, LCA, lca hardware, struts, hubs, seals, cv shaft seal, inner and outer tie rods, sway bar end links, calipers, pads and rotors! Also, new rear shocks.
Holy crap, was quite the parts bill. Add a new set of duratracs too. All was supposed to be well, but alignment time failed. The passenger side, rear alignment tab on the frame folded like tin foil. Using most my strength and some ratchet straps, the alignment guy and I were able to correct camber from -2.0, to -0.1. Spec is +0.5 to +2.0, so Camber is still out, and my truck drives like shit despite $3,000 in new parts. Steering is heavy, pulls to bad side, wanders badly between 90-105 km/h, and fails to “return to Centre”. All very terrible. But seeing camber into spec should fix all of that.
On Monday coming up, truckee goes back into the alignment shop, will have that tab repaired, and alignment sent into spec.
Now that the front is mostly repaired, the rear has spoken up that it is unhappy. Bad bad vibration, I hope is just rear wheel bearings. I’m not setup to replace them, so I’ll have to outsource that job. Haven’t made any calls yet, but will call my buddy Brian first.
Before I bring truckee to Brian, I have to replace the rear hard lines on the axle. The portion just inboard of the backing plates is wayyy too crunchy to be separated and reconnected to do the wheel bearings. Will run two lengths of copper nickel line up to the flex hoses. Annnnd, I need drums and shoes. Drums were turned one already, but really the problem is they are disintegrating from rust on the outside, prolly down to half weight.
Lots going on, just nothing exciting really. Did i mention I’m glad 2024 has left us?
The shop has been busy, but not in a good way haha.
James’s FJ puked it’s AC compressor. He thought it was just the serpentine belt or idlers, but after swapping the horrendous grinding remained. It’s on the back burner now, James has been pretty busy lately, haven’t seen him in a couple weeks now.
Matt’s 4Runner has puked its power steering rack. The hard lines rotted out, and unfortunately the lines themselves are not replaceable. Matts truck is queued up for James to work on. He got a free used rack in lieu of a $1,000 replacement, then stumbled across a $200 manufacturer closeout deal that was too good to pass up.
Sams Caravan has puked so many parts I’m tired of working on it. I put a set of spark plugs in when a persistent misfire in cylinder 2 showed up. The electrode was mostly gone, so that made sense. Less than a month later the misfire returned, so in went a set of ignition coils and plugs. A day or two later, the e-brake cable snapped. So I put the 5th set of rear brakes into that damn Caravan, and a second replacement e-brake cable. This thing needs a full rear brake do-over every 25-40,000kms. Sitting at 170,000 now, maybe perhaps this set of rear will last to 2026? Oh, I also had to peel off the chrome caps from the lug nuts that were too swollen to fit the 19mm socket. That was a real pain.
Well it’s been a long couple months with hardly any work done to Redee, but to put it simply, good riddance to 2024. Fuck off, and stay in my past.
To start 2025 off properly, one of my daughters and I spent a couple hours sorting out some open items on Redee.
To start, we broke out the multimeter and long leads to trace 3RZ wiring from the underside of Redee, to the passenger footwell. On the computer, 3RZ reverse wires are R-Y and B-Y in connector II3 pins 19&20 respectively. We verified continuity, stripped the OEM connector off the female spade connectors on the harness side, introduced the W56 reverse wires, and let the magic happen. In the footwell, the connection was even easier because Redee’s R-Y and R wires had already been de-pinned when I improved the chevy wiring in 2018. Simply pushed Redee’s original wires into the II3 connector (body half). The beauty here is that should the 3RZ need to come out, I can separate the II3 connector under the dash and leave the body side in place. All this took about 2 hours with lots of teaching and laughter and fun times.
Later in the evening was a rinse and repeat but for the 4WD indicator light in the gauge cluster. A 1-wire hookup, verified functioning with a multimeter.
I guess I could finalize the verification by reconnecting the battery and witnessing the reverse lights turn on and off, but I’m fairly confident already.
Up next, more electrical tidy, I have to install my Fiberglass battery tray and work on a tie-down.
After that, I have to start ordering parts for a full exhaust system. Going stock 3rz manifold and catalytic convertor, followed by a hand built system into a generic muffler. Trying to build this cheaply, but I’m pretty sure just parts alone I’m up to $1,200-ish. I have been chewing on buying the LCE conversion header, but that one part alone has me at $700 USD, before tax and duty. Figure just that header alone would be $1200-1500 cdn….not doable. Gonna settle for OEM, build the rest slightly oversized (2.25” or 2.5”), and save my piggybank for a turbo kit in 10-15 years. Maybe a nice present to myself when I turn 50 haha.
After exhaust will be rear diff swap to the 4.88 on my bench.
Lastly will be tires. DESPERATELY LOOKING FOR 33” x 10.5” x 15” tires on the cheap. I had 12.5” wide, but sold them and the 10” wide rims. Now i have 7” rims on stay-flat tires.
A big list. Glad my daughters are going to keep me moving. They reminded me that I claimed we’d be touring in 2024. Do’h!
Thanks guys, my head feels about 4 times smaller now that i can purge some of that harness misery from my short term memory.
Still working on finishing the wire routing, and cleaning up under the drivers side of the dash.
Then onto exhaust, after payday.
Uggghhhh, this ECU refuses to fit into a spot I deem “preferable”. The ECU has detachable (and modifiable) mounting brackets booked on either side, but there’s not much free space for mounting to Redee. I think I’ll give it one more nights worth of attempt before I break out the industrial strength zipties.
I got distracted (somehow) while routing the O2 harness, and started to investigate where the donor Reverse and 4WD indicator light wires enter the cab, and unfortunately I may have removed those wires already, but I’ll try again to pin out continuity tonight. It’ll save me from running a few wires from the trans/tcase up into the cab myself.
Last night, I got Redee to crank with fuel pump using the key in the ignition!
I don’t know which of my corrective actions allowed the motor to crank, because during one of my checks I disconnected the starter solenoid wire and forgot to reconnect it for about an hour and 10 small fixes. Anyways once I reconnected the solenoid wire, Redee started cranking on the first twist.I have a couple more wiring tasks ahead of me; mount the ECU, run the O2/reverse/4wd harness over the trans and into place.
My next major task is building an exhaust front to back. And the final task will be swapping the rear third member to the 4.88 lunchbox sitting on the shop floor.
Well last night I mustered up all my courage, and attached the battery to Redee. Thank God nothing started melting. However that’s the end of the good news.
No crank, and no fuel pump were my condition once i finally twisted the ignition.
No fuel I figured out was because my Circuit opening relay to which I was getting fuel pump power was in a tote rather than under the dash. So I verified it works, installed it, re-wired my 3RZ leads accordingly.
As for no crank, I have more digging to do tonight. Gonnabe Checking voltage at the ECU, perhaps one of my “always hot” or “IGN 2” or “while cranking” wires are incorrect.
Yesterday in The Shop, I bolted in a new-to-me spare tire hoist, so I could finally pull my spare out of the bed. It was pretty tough packing for camping last weekend around the spare. Hoping this hoist lasts longer than the original, it was a real pain in the face cutting the old one out, and hurt the hands getting the new one in. Removing or even just lifting the bed a couple inches would have made a world of difference.
Busy day in The Shop already today.
I put two bicycle tire tubes in Matts bike, changed the full set of spark plugs into Sam’s van, did an oil and filter change in my mo-laws suv, and cut the spare tire hoist mechanism out of truckee. I just have to figure out what fasteners are required before I can attempt to bolt in a replacement unit I got offa TacoBro years ago. My hands and arms are sore from all the micro burns cutting the hoist out, may not get anymore work done tonight.Last week I bought the Fiberglass battery tray off ToyotaFiberglasd, less than $200 to my door after shipping and tax is OK.
Last night on Redee I think I finished the 3RZ integration wiring. I’m pretty nervous to hook up power to the truck. Gonna do it in stages, and not connect the ECU until I’m assured I didn’t mess up a power or ground somewhere.
I still have to mount the ECU under the dash, kinda limited on location because the leads coming from the engine bay are short. Will fab up a bracket soon enough.
Been trying to tidy The Shop for the last couple nights in anticipation of having more work to do on stuff.
I managed to weld up the side discharge hole on my push mower after the spring loaded flap door Bluetoothed itself. I only ever mulch or bag, so losing the flap door was no big deal.Attachments:
Today in The Shop, sams Caravan. On her way home from Brampton yesterday, a vicious misfire sprang up. Sam thought a tire was coming off the hub everything shook so badly. I retorqued all the lugs (none were loose), and reset all the tire pressure to comfort her, but the engine light was letting me know this was not a tire issue.
Anyways, borrowed a code reader today (no I’ve never owned one), and cleared two misfire codes. Cylinder 2 is the culprit, so annoyed these gay V6s bury the plugs under the intake manifold. Pulled it apart, only broke one clip, removed plug 2 and it is horribly worn. I’ve ordered a set of 6 off amazon for $35, as opposed to $18 ea at my local store. Wednesday I shall completely re-do this hassle and replace all 6 plugs, as opposed to just this one piece of low hanging fruit.I guess 160,000 kms is plenty on original plugs. Think i change the taco every 60-80 thousand
Sent an inquiry off to Toyota Fiberglass for a LEFT side battery tray. Currently my battery is sitting on nothing, held down by nothing. I was trying to think of something better than 2×6 and ratchet strap for the two “nothings” in question. ~$100 isn’t too shabby for a buy once cry once solution.
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The voltage regulator arrived yesterday, just in time for dog shit weather, like 12 and raining tomorrow.
Pics all too big, trying again
